


Why Do I Love You, Sir?

by teacupfulofbrains



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien-centric, F/M, Mostly Fluff, and also of italics, and he loves her anyway, basically he realizes who ladybug is, but not much i promise, gratuitous overuse of emily dickinson, i don't actually think they get together?, there is the tiniest smidge of mamagreste angst, this is nothing but fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 17:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11257992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupfulofbrains/pseuds/teacupfulofbrains
Summary: Adrien and Marinette are partners for a school project, and Adrien swears there's something familiar about the lines Ladybug keeps whispering . . .(or, Adrien and Marinette bond over a shared love of Emily Dickinson and Adrien Figures Things Out)





	Why Do I Love You, Sir?

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this doc is 'i needed a reason to use my emily dickinson compilation and so here we are' and that should really tell you all you need to know  
> the poem adrien chooses is 1664 ("I did not reach Thee")  
> the poem mari chooses is 480 ("Why do I love Thee, Sir?") which is also where the title comes from  
> please enjoy, and let me know if you did! : )

The assignment actually has Adrien excited.

 

The premise is simple enough – pick a poem, any poem, memorize it, and recite it in front of the class in a week. Miss Bustier passes out half-sheets of paper and tells them to write their poem and poet down, to ensure everyone has a different poem. She also advises that they find a partner to practice reciting their poems with. Adrien has barely touched his pencil eraser to his lips in thought before he realizes he knows exactly what poem to pick.

 

When he hands in his paper, Miss Bustier smiles. “I see you and Miss Dupain-Cheng have similar tastes in poetry!” Adrien turns to Marinette, who promptly squeaks, blushes, and falls down the seating tiers, landing in a flustered heap at his feet. Chloé laughs from her seat, but Adrien simply pulls Marinette up again. He doesn’t know why she’s so nervous around him (she can’t still be mad about the gum thing, can she?), but it doesn’t make him quite as paranoid as it used to. He smiles, earning a tiny nervous smile in return.

 

“You like Emily Dickinson as well?” he asks. His father’s voice immediately echoes in his head, dripping with disdain – _You sound too eager, Adrien, you need to reign in your emotions. You take after your mother far too much in that regard._ He quickly shakes it away, focusing instead on the way Marinette’s eyes light up at the mention of the poet and the way she grins broadly.

 

“She’s my favorite! I just love her language and her use of dashes – oh, and did you know that she actually had, like, flaming red hair?”

 

The lunch bell rings, opening the floodgates and releasing a torrent of students out into the yard. Alya winks at Marinette as she walks out with Nino (who shoots a finger gun at Adrien over Marinette’s head); as Marinette turns to leave, Adrien catches her wrist. The second their skin makes contact, she turns tomato-red. “Do you want to practice reciting our poems together? Since we picked the same poet, y’know? Which poem did you pick?”

 

“Um . . . 480,” she gasps. “I’d – I – love – live – tree – to! I’d love to!”

 

“Cool! Do you want to come over to my house after school?” Marinette gasps audibly, and Adrien can feel her pulse quicken beneath the pads of his fingers. Her skin is soft, and when he slides down to hold her hand he can feel the texture of her fingers, the tiny scabbed-over scars where she’s pricked herself with the needle over the course of her sewing career.

 

“I – come – your – I?”

 

“The car picks me up in the front after school. Do you need to get permission from your parents?” Marinette reaches into her schoolbag and pulls out her phone, aggressively swiping and tapping her way into her text messages.

 

“They gave me the afternoon off from the bakery, so I should be okay . . .” she muses. Adrien swiftly sends a text of his own to Nathalié – _A friend is coming over after school to work on a project._ “Yeah, I might be free, I think I’ll be alright . . .”

 

“Cool! So I’ll meet you out front after school?”

 

Before Marinette can reply, Chloé pushes past her, throwing her arms around Adrien’s neck. He can smell her perfume, sickly sweet and heavily overused, and he absolutely hates it. Chloé has always been far too over-the-top for his taste, he thinks; he vaguely remembers actually enjoying her company when they were small, but the memory is faded and worn and sometimes he wonders if it’s real or not. Her jewelry clinks together as she speaks rapidly, breath uncomfortably hot against his face.  


“Adrikins!” she trills. “Do you want to partner up and practice our poems? What am I saying – of course you do! It is an honor to work with the fabulous me, after all!”

 

Adrien carefully pries her arms off of his neck, but before he can say anything at all, Marinette does. “Actually, Chloé, Adrien already asked me to work with him after school today. And I said yes. You shouldn’t assume that everyone worships the ground you walk on just because your father’s in a position of power.” Chloé scoffs.

 

“Well, at least there’s basis. Your father is a pathetic pastry-maker. Isn’t baking a girl’s job? What must that say about him, hmm? What must that say about you?” Marinette looks ready to explode or punch someone or straight-up murder Chloé, and Adrien can already feel his heart sinking. He hates that Chloé feels the need to intrude on everything he does; he hates that she seems to be driving away all his friends, the friends he fought so hard to make and keep. She’s too much like his father, that way.

 

“Actually, Chloé, I used to bake all the time with my mother,” he says, scattered fragments floating to the forefront of his mind.

 

_A tall woman, hair shining like honey, with a pale pink apron and a soft smile._

_A smear of flour across her nose, a high, musical laugh as Adrien waves a batter-covered spoon everywhere._

_The look on his father’s face when he encounters a messy kitchen, a pristine wife, and an even messier son offering him a pale purple cupcake._

 

“So what does that say about me?” His voice comes out a little sharper than he wants it to, a little too bitter, a little too angry – a little too Gabriel. He turns to Marinette, tells her to meet him out front after school, and leaves without a second thought.

 

When he’s locked in a bathroom stall, trying to calm down from the encounter and also not think about his mother, Plagg worms his way out of his shirt. For once, the kwami is silent, curling on his shoulder and gently pressing his tiny black face against Adrien’s pale neck. “I’m here, kid,” is all he says, a barely audible murmur, and Adrien is comforted by the sincerity of the words.

*~*~*~*~*

Marinette is standing on the steps when Adrien comes out, accompanied by Nino talking avidly about something that happened last night. When Adrien sees Marinette, he smiles softly, and Nino punches his arm and laughs, “Go get ‘em, tiger!” before sprinting off to catch up with Alya.

 

Adrien and Marinette fall into step easily as they descend the broad stone staircase. When they reach the shining silver car, the Gorilla gets out and throws an arm out to prevent Marinette from coming any closer. It’s usually Chloé he’s guarding against, so Adrien understands the bodyguard, but poor Marinette looks absolutely terrified. “It’s okay!” Adrien exclaims, hastily attempting to push the Gorilla’s arm out of the way. “She’s a friend of mine! We have a school project together!” The Gorilla looks from Adrien’s earnest face to Marinette’s terrified one, makes a sort of apologetic grunt, and opens the door with a slight bow.

 

“It’s no trouble, really!” Marinette squeaks, hands flailing in front of her as Adrien climbs into the backseat. She nearly forgets her schoolbag on the sidewalk, almost yelping when the Gorilla hands it to her. “Thank you!”

 

“I don’t think I actually live that far from your house,” Adrien comments, fiddling with his cell phone. Marinette, seemingly awestruck by the car’s interior, nods faintly, peering out the window, eyes wide with wonder. Adrien smiles softly to himself; this expression looks good on Marinette. He wants to show her the most amazing things in the world, just to see that soft wonder painted across her face again.

 

They pull up to the mansion all too soon, and Marinette politely thanks the Gorilla while Adrien punches the access code into the keypad by the gate. When the massive wrought-iron bars swing open, he sets a hand gently on Marinette’s shoulder. She jumps a solid two feet into the air, nearly crashing into him as she touches down. He gestures towards the massive entrance. “Here we are!”

 

Marinette is awestruck again when they enter the foyer. Her eyes roam over the shining tiled floors, the chandelier dangling from the ceiling via the thinnest possible support, the sweeping staircase, the ivory marble busts, drinking it all in. Adrien notices her gaze lingering on the golden mosaic portrait of his mother. “She’s beautiful,” she whispers.

 

“She really was,” Adrien sighs. Marinette turns her eyes on him, still shining with awe and wonder but tinged with something else now. Not pity (he knows that expression all too well), but something else. Sadness? Empathy?

 

“Oh, Adrien, you have her eyes,” she tells him, and he’s heard before how much he resembles his mother but it somehow means more coming from Marinette, this girl who seems perpetually disturbed by him, standing in his foyer and watching him with that gaze (sharp and intelligent but still kind and empathetic) that he swears he’s seen somewhere before. “You have her eyes, and her hair, and her skin, and her _smile_.”

 

“Yeah, but I don’t have her.” It comes out with more bitterness than he’d intended; Marinette doesn’t seem fazed by it.

 

“You’ll always have her,” she responds, completely nonplussed. “She’s so much a part of you – not just genetics, but in your heart. I know her kindness lives in you.”

 

Adrien just stares for a moment – watches Marinette as she returns to gazing at his house in awe. _I thought I terrified her. But she’s so calm and reassuring, even though she barely knows me._ He shakes it off quickly, ushering Marinette up to his room.

 

She spends a few more minutes basking in the awe of his room before he pulls an Emily Dickinson book off his shelf and flips through to the correct page. “What poem did you say you picked?”

 

“480,” she murmurs. “Is – is that a rock-climbing wall? In your bedroom?!” Adrien just laughs. His fingers quickly find the right page, paper slightly coarse against his fingertips.

 

“Why Do I Love You, Sir?”

 

The poem’s title rolls off his tongue easily, and when Marinette hears it she turns to him with a sunny smile. “It’s my favorite poem. Not just that she wrote, but probably ever.”

 

Adrien scans over the text. It’s not as long as his poem, but it is beautiful in its simplicity. He turns the book towards Marinette, and when her fingers brush his something electric sparks across their skin. She feels it too, judging by the jerky way she pulls away from him; before he can even ask, she begins to read the poem aloud, snapping the book shut. Her eyes close, and the second she begins reciting her voice takes on a whole new tone.

 

“ ‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?

Because –

The Wind does not require the Grass

To answer – Wherefore when He pass

She cannot keep Her place.

 

Because He knows – and

Do not You –

And We know – know . . . um, know . . . know . . .”

 

Marinette falters somewhere around the second stanza, handing the book back to Adrien. “So what’s your poem, then?”

 

Adrien leafs through to almost the very end of the book, stopping at poem 1664. “Here.” Marinette peers at the book, mouthing the first line softly to herself. “It was my mother’s favorite poem, and now that she’s gone it reminds me of her. She used to read me these poems at night.” He can still remember the soft, steady rhythm of her voice, the gentle movements of her chest up and down as he leaned back, the way the pages looked in the low lamplight.

 

“I did not reach Thee

But my feet slip nearer every day

Three Rivers and a Hill to cross

One Desert and a Sea

I shall not count the journey one

When I am telling thee.

 

Two deserts, but the Year is cold

So that will help the sand –

One desert crossed –

The second one

Will feel as cool as land

Sahara is too little price

To pay for thy Right hand.

 

The Sea comes last – Step merry, feet,

So short we have to go –

To play together we are prone

But we must labor now,

The last shall be the lightest load

That we have had to draw.

 

The Sun goes crooked –

That is Night

Before he makes the bend.

We must have passed the Middle Sea –

Almost we wish the End

Were further off –

Too great it seems

So near the Whole to stand.

 

We step like Plush,

We stand like snow,

The waters murmur new.

Three rivers and the Hill are passed –

Two deserts and the sea!  
Now Death usurps my Premium

And gets the look at Thee.”

 

Marinette’s mouth is open slightly as Adrien reads the last stanza. “It always reminds me of her,” he says softly, “because I always assumed if I worked hard and I did everything my father wanted I would make her proud. I would make them both proud. But after all my hard work, she’ll – she’ll never know what I did.” The weight of his ring grows heavy on his finger; even though he could never have told his mother about being Chat Noir, he hopes that she would have been proud.

 

“I’m proud of you,” Marinette says seriously. Before Adrien can respond, she picks up the books and flips back to her poem. “OK, now, where did I mess up?”

 

Adrien has never felt so light.

*~*~*~*~*

Later on that week, an akuma attacks at night – a cab driver tired of low-tipping passengers trapping civilians in cabs that never stop running and constantly rack up exacerbated fees. Adrien calls Plagg, and in a flash of black and neon green he’s Chat Noir. He vaults through the streets of Paris like a gondolier with his staff, and by the time he lands on a rooftop to survey the damages, Ladybug is waiting for him. Her eyes shine behind her polka-dotted mask, and her yoyo is already in her slender fingers.

 

“Nice of you to show up, Chat Noir,” she says, one eyebrow cocked in annoyance. He drops into a bow, low and from the waist.

 

“Wouldn’t want to drive you crazy with waiting, My Lady!” He earns an eye roll for his troubles, but he catches a hint of a smile at she turns away.

 

“Come on, then, we’ve got to get this done. I have a test to study for.” Adrien can relate; he and Marinette have been cramming for a history test in addition to their poem memorization, and while he has most of his down pat Marinette still seems to be struggling. Ladybug lassoes a nearby building, gives a slight tug on the string, and smiles at him.

 

“Let’s go, _chaton_.”

 

They sprint along the rooftops together, and Adrien can hear Ladybug saying something under her breath, in between sharp gasps of air and short yelps as she freefalls into her swings. “And we know not – enough for us – the wisdom – be – it – so –”

 

Adrien swears he recognizes those words from somewhere, but before he can devote any more time to it, they’re right in the thick of the akuma fight. Ladybug’s lucky charm (a polka-dotted scarf) lands the driver’s cap right in his lap, and a well-placed cataclysm sends a little black-and-purple butterfly fluttering through the Parisian night. Ladybug catches and purifies it almost effortlessly, and when he approaches her after the “Miraculous Ladybug!” he catches another string of rushed-together words. “Because he knows it cannot speak and reasons not contained of talk there be preferred by daintier folk – ”

 

“Excellent work as always, My Lady!” he purrs, holding his arm out for a fist bump. Ladybug, startled, turns around with a slight jump – a jump that sends her toppling over the low edge of the building. Realistically, Adrien knows she’ll be ok – she can pull her yoyo out and swing her way to safety with ease; akuma attacks have provided more than enough practice. But he panics, lurches forward, and grabs her wrist, digging his claws into the brick to support her weight and his.

 

“Chat . . .” Her voice is breathless (does he know that voice?), and he pulls her up quickly, running his hands over her shoulders and arms as he frantically checks for damage.

 

“I’m so sorry, My Lady!”

 

“Chat, I –”

 

“I didn’t mean to, I thought you were further from the edge, are you hurt?”

 

“Chat –”

 

“I’ll never forgive myself if something happened to you, I swear –”

 

“CHAT NOIR!” He freezes, looking up slowly, expecting to meet a furious Ladybug. But her eyes are soft, her expression kind, and he slowly begins to untense. “I’m not mad. You just startled me, that’s all. And look –”

 

She approaches the edge and jumps off. Adrien sprints to the edge, frantic, but freezes when he sees Ladybug standing on a balcony jutting out of the building, not seven feet from the rooftop. “I would have landed here anyway. At most, I’d have the breath knocked out of me. I’ve taken harder hits in civilian life.”

 

She hooks her yoyo on the building’s edge and comes soaring up to land daintily beside him. Her hand settles on his cheek, and she’s as close as Chloé was the day he asked Marinette to work with him. But this closeness is actually desirable. Ladybug smells sweet, an almost-familiar scent that he can’t quite place, and the soft puffs of her breath barely brush his face. Her eyes shine, blue as a summer sky during the day. They’re darker now in the twilight but by no means dimmer, streetlights reflecting in them like stars in the night sky.

 

He thinks he’s dreaming when she leans forward, just slightly, and presses the softest of kisses against his cheek. Her nose bumps the seam where his mask meets his skin, her hand is still cupped around his other cheek, and if Adrien is dreaming then he never wants to wake up.

 

“I’m touched by your concern, _chaton_ ,” she tells him, and then she’s stepping back and swinging away. Adrien spends at least five minutes in the same position, gazing dreamily off in the direction Ladybug left in, before his miraculous beeps in warning and he rushes home.

*~*~*~*~*

The lines Ladybug whispered haunt him almost as much as the kiss does over the weekend, but it’s not til Monday morning that the gravity of the situation sinks in. Marinette stands at the front of the classroom, ready to recite her poem. Chloé and Sabrina leer at her, Alya flashes a thumbs-up from her seat beside Nino, but it’s Adrien her eyes seek out, shining blue like liquid summer. He smiles; Marinette’s worked all week for this. She takes a deep breath, smiles back, and begins to recite. As the words flow through the classroom, Adrien realizes he recognizes them from more places than one.

 

“ ‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?

Because –

The Wind does not require the Grass

To answer – Wherefore when He pass

She cannot keep Her place.

 

Because He knows – and

Do not You –

And We know not –

Enough for Us

The Wisdom it be so –”

 

Adrien smiles, watching Marinette’s face light up as she talks, and as she enters the third stanza he begins silently mouthing the words along with her. Her voice is clear and bright, and it rings through the classroom with striking clarity, the same way as Ladybug’s announcing to all of Paris that she and Chat Noir would defend the city from Hawkmoth and his akumas.

 

“The Lightning – never asked an Eye

Wherefore it shut – when He was by –

Because He knows it cannot speak –

And reasons not contained –

– Of Talk –

There be – preferred by Daintier Folk –”

 

Marinette’s face glows as she reaches the last stanza, and Adrien looks at her and sees. He looks at her, and he recognizes everything. He looks at Marinette like he’s drinking her in for the first time, and he realizes that he _knows_ her.

 

He knows those hands, long slender fingers that sew with dexterity both natural and honed through time and fling a yoyo with practiced ease. He knows that hair, whether the pigtails are bouncing as she sprints after Alya or streaming behind her in the cool night air as she races along the Paris rooftops. He knows those cheeks, always coated with red whether it’s a blush or a mask. He knows that nose, whether it’s scrunched up in embarrassment or tracing along the skin below his mask. He knows those lips, whether they’re pouting at Chloé’s antics or pressed against his cheek. And he most definitely knows those eyes, whether they’re the soft, pure blue of a summer sky or the deep, rich indigo of twilight in Paris. Marinette recites the final stanza, and Adrien soaks the words in.

 

“The Sunrise – Sir – compelleth Me –

Because He’s Sunrise – and I see –

Therefore – Then –

I love Thee –”

 

Marinette bows slightly to the applause of their classmates, laughing and smiling, and Adrien recognizes her smile, her laugh, her movements. He watches as his first real friend and his first real love ascends the stairs to her seat, and when he makes eye contact with her, he smiles. And as she smiles back at him, turning to Alya, he whispers to himself, so softly that no one else can hear.

 

“I love you too, My Lady, Marinette."


End file.
